2.11 Graphics

2.11.1 Standard, high and low resolution

Liquid War 6 will try and pick up a default resolution when the game
is launched the first time. It won’t use your maximum screen resolution
but will instead list all available fullscreen modes, and pick up one which
is usually something like two thirds of the highest mode. This is to allow
switching back and forth between fullscreen and windowed mode using the same
settings. This automatically picked-up resolution really depends on your hardware
and driver. It is called “standard” in the graphics options menu.

Then it is possible to automatically select the minimum and maximum resolution
your hardware allows in fullscreen mode. These are called “low” and “high”
in the graphics options menu. Just click on the button that display the
resolution, it will change and use the next setting. In windowed mode, the game
won’t accept the highest available mode but will instead use a percentage of it,
defined by the --windowed-mode-limit parameter.

You might still be in a case where this is not enough. For instance your maximum
resolution is 1600x1200, Liquid War 6 picks a default mode of 1280x960 for you but
for some reason you want to play in 800x600, fullscreen. In this case, simply switch
to windowed mode, resize the window with the mouse (the resolution button will
show you the current resolution) and just choose a resolution near 800x600. It does not
even need to be exactly 800x600, 798x603 would probably fit. Then when switching
back to fullscreen, you’ll be in 800x600, the game will automatically pick up
the fullscreen mode which is closest to the current windowed mode resolution.

2.11.2 Display rate

By default the game will try and run at 60 frames per second. Given the nature
of Liquid War 6, this is probably enough. Higher values will maybe give a slightly
smoother display, but barely noticeable.

You can activate the display of frames per seconds (aka “fps”) through the
menu (“options -> system”) or with the command line (“–display-fps”).

On a single processor system, reducing the number of frames per second might
allow the rest of the game run faster. So if you notice the game is really
slow, in terms of “fighters move slowly” then you might be happy reducing
the display rate and therefore giving power back to the other parts of the
program. On a dual-core (or more) or on a multi-processor system, this is
probably useless since the game is threaded and has a dedicated thread for
display purposes. The command line option to reduce the number of frames
per second is --target-fps.

Additionnally, the parameter --gfx-cpu-usage allows you to force
the display thread to “take a rest” and go idle for some time. This is
advanced settings, most users won’t touch this.